February 8, 2025 • 55 mins
In this episode, Dr. Jade and Matthew Paetz delve into the pervasive issue of self-sabotage, exploring its roots in trauma and conditioning. They discuss how childhood experiences shape beliefs and identities, leading to self-destructive behaviors. The conversation emphasizes the importance of understanding one's conditioning and the role of pain in facilitating change. Matthew shares personal insights from his journey, highlighting the need for a safe space to explore truth and the courage required to break free from limiting beliefs and environments. In this conversation, Matthew Paetz and Jade discuss the importance of self-honesty and the concept of an 'honesty audit' as a means to self-discovery. They delve into the complexities of self-sabotage, exploring how comfort zones can hinder personal growth. The discussion highlights the biological roots of behavior, emphasizing the need for safety and survival. Finally, they offer practical tools for unwinding conditioning and fostering personal transformation, focusing on the significance of diet, connection, and self-reflection.
Contact Matthew: Instagram @matthewpaetz
00:00:00 Understanding Self-Sabotage and Trauma Conditioning
00:13:55 Breaking Free
00:25:37 Navigating Self-Sabotage and Unconscious Patterns
00:34:44 Unwinding Conditioning
00:42:21 Changing Behavior Through Self-Awareness
00:46:28 Connecting With Matthew on Instagram
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Website: www.jadeteta.com
Instagram: @jadeteta
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the show everybody.
My name is Dr Jay Tita.
This is the Next Level HumanPodcast and I have a good friend
of mine and past guest of theshow, matthew Pate, on with us
and my brother.
It's been a while since I haveseen you.
You know we were going back andforth on Instagram.
It's hard.
It's been hard.
I think we've been going backand forth about a year.
Be like yo, let's do anotherpodcast.
Let's get together.
We finally made it happen.
(00:20):
We're going to podcast.
Let's get together.
We finally made it happen.
I'm glad we've got like.
Both of us have an hour of timethat we can get this
conversation in.
And here's the thing, man.
I mean I always love yourcontent, I always love your
perspective, and one of thethings that you just told me
that you're heavily into and Iknow you've been dealing with a
lot is this idea ofself-sabotage.
(00:42):
And I actually love the idea ofthis as just a straight up, you
know title for a podcast,because it's one of those things
that everybody is strugglingwith.
I don't know a person,entrepreneur, successful person,
people who have not been ableto make it.
Everywhere we look, individualsare struggling with this idea
(01:04):
of self-sabotage, and I want toget into this with you.
Where does this come from?
Why are we humans so haunted bythis and what do we do about
that?
And I guess, just for those whodon't remember your first show,
why don't we just start with alittle bit of an introduction
and then let's get into this,because I know you have some
unique sort of ways of talkingabout self-sabotage.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Jake man, I appreciate you and from here on
out I want you to introduce meanywhere we go.
Yeah, you got it, brother.
Now this is a big one for me.
But before I launch into it, alittle bit about my background.
So I've been in the personaldevelopment, psychology, healing
, call it what you wish spacefor a little over a decade.
My background is in traumatherapy.
(01:50):
I think it's more true todaythan ever you don't get into
psychology because you have yourshit together.
Me, you know, I I discovered itas I started to face and lean
into the things that I wasreally struggling with.
A lot of my early childhoodtraumas that you know had reared
its head and started to impactmy life in ways that were
(02:13):
unacceptable for me specificallyand the people around me.
You know, and I won't, thisshow isn't about all that, but
you know, the early childhoodsexual abuse stuff, struggles
with drug addiction was anescort for a while, you know,
you name it.
I'm really fun at parties, yeah, yeah, or I used to be, and I
(02:33):
share that.
Before we get into self-sabotage, because you know it's
important to understand kind ofthe origin stories, the
narratives, the identities thatwe operate from, because that's
going to really run the show andeven as you start to heal
through things, you're going tobe introduced to stuff you've
never experienced, which isgoing to trigger all the old
ways Right.
And another reason why I like toshare that too is because you
know I struggled a lot withimposter syndrome in this space,
(02:55):
I think, as many people do, inwhatever career they've chosen,
and you know fears of not havingthe you know, the specific
degree or the certifications orwhatever it may have been, for
you know, when I was coming up,what I do believe gives me the
unique ability in some casesunique advantage to support
(03:16):
people in the way that I do ismy personal story and it's you
know.
I know how trauma works behindclosed doors and it's not just
regurgitating some fancy book Ionce read, and you know my life
has really given a lot ofinsight into how I believe other
people are experiencing theirstruggles as well, which again
leads me to the self-sabotagepiece.
So I'll pause on that for asecond, because I could riff on
(03:38):
this for hours.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, and you know this.
That's really where I wanted tostart with you, man, is that
you know there's this idea.
You have been through whatpeople would call you know that
capital T traumas, Right.
So, and this is this is where Iwant to unpack with you, to
sort of start, because I thinkyou are given someone who has
gone through a quote, capital Ttrauma, whereas most people have
(04:02):
not trauma, whereas most peoplehave not, and what I want to
try to unpack with you assomeone who has the credibility
from that perspective, which isa kind of a horrible way to say
it right, it's like no one wouldwish this on anyone, but these
experiences do inform in a waythat nothing else can.
One of the things I've beenstruck by is that I see so many
(04:23):
people who are struggling isstruck by is that I see so many
people who are struggling withself-sabotage, with
trauma-related issues that wouldnever define themselves as
having trauma, and so one of thethings that I feel like is
important to begin to understandis that just because it may not
be a capital T trauma does notmean that this is not impacting
(04:48):
you, and I'll just set this upfor you and see where you want
to go with this.
I carry this mud, misguided,unconscious decisions.
You know I always got anacronym right, I love it.
Yeah, it's like.
So this mud right.
When we are young teenage years, usually childhood years it
comes when ever we're exposed toa situation that we don't have
the knowledge, experience,wisdom, maturity to deal with.
(05:10):
That's why it's misguided,because we don't have the tools
yet to make sense of it.
It's unconscious because itfollows us around like a shadow,
and this is the controversialpart.
I think it's a decision because,like it or not, and whether
we're aware of it or not.
Decision because, like it ornot, and whether we're aware of
it or not, we did choose to seethe world and ourselves a
particular way as a result of it.
(05:31):
And this can happen in my mindand this is a question, but this
can happen in my mind, whetherit's a capital T trauma, sexual
abuse, war, physical abuse, thiskind of stuff, or whether it's
just being bullied at school or,in my case, being left at a
playground, a bad park, when Iwas about five or six years old,
through no fact of my parentsat all, just miscommunication.
(05:53):
I was left there for probablyabout an hour in the dark.
It actually had a traumaticimpact on me.
Now no one would say that's atrauma, nor is it anyone's quote
fault, but it certainly had animpact on my trusting the world
and trusting people, and so I'mwondering how you unpack this
for people, because I know noteveryone you work with or I work
(06:15):
with is going to be people whohave dealt with capital T
traumas.
Yet they are dealing with theshadow or the ghost of what we
might call trauma work and theydon't necessarily know it.
I guess I'm wondering do youagree with that?
How do you see that and howwould you explain some of this?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Absolutely yeah, for the sake of this conversation.
What I would be interested todoing is what if we?
What if we change the wordtrauma to conditioning right?
Because much of what we'redealing with and a lot of the
you know quote, unquote a lot ofthe behaviors that we would
identify, I'll say it this way,a lot of the behaviors that we
identify or would identify asself-sabotage really stems from,
(06:58):
you know, chronic conditioningRight.
And so if someone looks attheir life and they're like,
okay, I don't have any traumas,fair, I'm not here to prove that
theory wrong.
I'm not interested in, you know, taking shovels to people's
past and you know, pointing atthe things and be like, no,
that's trauma.
See, like absolutely not.
What I'm most interested in iswhat is the story, what is the
(07:20):
narrative, what are the momentsin your life that that still
stick out or still hold a charge?
And then, from that experience,what is the message you adopted
or what is the identity you mayhave assumed a belief about
yourself, if you will because ofthose experiences.
And it's interesting becauseyou brought up the age of five,
(07:41):
right, and this was one of thebiggest aha moments when I was
going through my development andunderstanding, like you know,
why do I have the beliefs I doabout myself, why do I have the
patterns that I have, et cetera.
It's when I really began tounderstand that during our
formative years, specificallyzero to six, you know, before we
have the cognitive ability toidentify self from other right,
(08:03):
I am separate from mother, I'mseparate from father, I'm
separate from the household thatI'm being raised in.
During those zero to six years,as you well know, we are
constantly absorbing informationwithout any ability to
challenge it or any.
We don't have the experience tosee multiple perspectives or
any of these kinds of things.
So you know whatever ishappening to us at perspectives
(08:24):
or any of these kind of things,so you know whatever is
happening to us, at that time weare absorbing as fact, whether
that's a belief about ourselves,a belief about the world, et
cetera.
And it's also interestingbecause you know we, as human
beings, we're tribal creatures,you know, which just simply
means we require the acceptanceand the approval of a tribe in
order to survive, which justsimply means we require the
(08:46):
acceptance and the approval of atribe in order to survive.
So, if you think about this,during zero to six, during the
years that we are developing asignificant piece of our
identity or sense of self.
We are also 100 percentdependent creatures, meaning the
strategies that we must adoptin order to survive, to seek
approval and acceptance, is aperformance based.
(09:08):
If I act, I receive.
If I act a certain way, myfather will tell me he loves me.
If I act a certain way, mymother will hold me.
If I act a certain way, youknow, so, on and so forth.
You get fed, you get held, youget all the things.
So many of us develop thisidentity or this belief that we
must perform in order to beenough to be accepted, to be
(09:29):
safe, to be anything, and atthat stage of life, that's 100%
evolve.
But what is left behind withoutif on default it gets left
behind, right, it requiresintention is our identities, our
(09:52):
sense of self.
So a lot of the chronicconditioning stems from the
messaging we received when wewere young.
If you were told constantlythat you're too small, right,
you're not old enough, you'renot smart enough, you're not
whatever enough, if you look atthat and you say, okay, that
must be true, because I've heardthat messaging so much, you
(10:13):
know, you don't have the abilityto say, of course, I'm too
young, I'm five.
You just adopt this belief thatyou're too young, right, so you
can be 55, holding all thedegrees and the gray hairs and
the wisdom, and in your mind,you're still too young to be
respected, too young to bewhatever Right, because it has
nothing to do with your age, haseverything to do with that
belief.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You know, this is really interesting.
The very last word you saidbelief, right, like I think,
like ultimately, that's what itis right.
So from my perspective, I go,let me just unpack a little bit
and I always love the way youput things, but let me just
repeat it in a slightlydifferent way and then let's
expand on it.
To me, I see it as like okay,so this conditioning, what's
being conditioned?
I would say those are stories,narratives about what the world
(11:00):
is like and who I am.
So I love the idea ofconditioning and I love these
stories.
Now, take this conditioning anda bunch of these kinds of
stories and put them together.
You start to formulate beliefs.
Put these beliefs together, youstart to formulate an identity.
Put these identities togetherand this is the part where I
think is really interesting.
Notice, I said identitiesbecause we are not one identity
(11:26):
in my mind, but we are many andwe play different roles.
Those become our habits andbehaviors and, from my
perspective, what we do not youand I and people who do our work
, but what most of theself-development world does is
it's a habit and behaviororiented approach.
Change your habits, change yourbehaviors, change your life.
(11:47):
What you're essentiallypointing to here is like,
actually, no, it's aboutchanging your identity.
But you also went one stepdeeper and you said, no, it's
about changing your beliefs.
And there was even one stepdifferent.
It's about changing yourconditioning and your stories.
And you know, it doesn'tsurprise me, matthew, because
you and I, I think, are from thefirst time we met.
It's like we, we to us.
(12:07):
Obviously, we probably read thesame things and listen to the
same individuals, but the onething that I want to add to this
is I want you to unpack this inany other direction you want,
(12:29):
but from my perspective, whatI'm most interested in is okay,
like I know a lot of people now.
We talk to a lot of people.
A lot of people go okay, well,I've done therapy people.
A lot of people go okay, well,I've done therapy, I processed
this stuff.
I'm aware of some of thesestories, these beliefs, these
narratives.
I've done some coaching, soI've tried changing my habits
and behaviors and working onmotivation.
Maybe even I've done someenergy work.
(12:51):
I've taken some ayahuasca andI've done some chakra clearings
and some Reiki work or whateverit is.
My thing is, none of this seemsto necessarily work that well
and I'm wondering if you're, ifyou see that too, and why, and
what is the approach?
(13:12):
Because I do think there's alot of people out there like,
yes, I get this, I've heard thisand, by the way, I think
there's a lot of people who'venever heard this, so this will
be their first time but still,one of the things that I think
happens in this trauma space iswe do talk an awful lot around
why it's occurring and why we'rebehaving the particular way,
but there doesn't seem to be awhole lot of talk about how to
(13:34):
address the change.
Now, you've been someone who'sbeen through this, so I am
interested in that.
Now, of course, I want you tounpack and add any other layers
you want onto the story we justtold.
But I do want to eventually getto this question of why is this
not working?
Some of these tools, thesetraditional approaches, for most
people.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah.
So a couple of things.
What I'll say first is well,there's a couple of little
quotes here that I'll start with.
So the first thing is I believeto my core that we all have two
lives.
This quote's pretty well known,but I do.
Or another way to say it islike we have the life that we're
capable of living and mostpeople never get out of the
(14:14):
conditioned, and that's theunfortunate piece of the
conditioned and that's theunfortunate piece.
Another thing that I see truein myself, first and foremost,
and I certainly see it true inthose who I've worked with and
I'm close to, which is a humanbeing, quite literally, will
(14:35):
never outperform the opinionthey have of themselves Hard
stuff.
So if you you know, you hear itall the time If you believe you
can, you believe you can't,you're right.
So you know, I think that's areally difficult thing for us to
face, even when we are aware ofit.
Right, we'll never outperformthe opinion of ourselves.
(14:55):
Now the unpacking why do I thinkthe majority of people never
get out of this?
Very first thing that comes upfor me is the majority of people
will never leave theenvironments that they were
raised in, period, if we're justtalking about majority numbers.
The mass majority of humanbeings are born in an area, born
in the household, born in afamily dynamic and a community
that they never leave.
And I don't just meanphysically, I mean you could
(15:16):
move a couple hours away, right,but if you're still deeply
entwined to whatever tribe youwere kind of raised in and
around, you are going to operatein perfect alignment with
what's acceptable to thosepeople, to those communities.
And oftentimes, as we grow upand become adults, I think,
especially in a modern worldwhere we have so much exposure
(15:36):
to so many different ways ofliving now, right, I think so
many of us are, you know,suffering, quite frankly, from
possibility.
It wasn't that long ago.
You remove the internet and youknow we're just hanging out in
our schools, our churches, ourjobs and, hey, this is just who
we are, this is what we do.
And as much as you might be,you know, battling, with some
(15:58):
struggles here and there, butlike, hey, we're all in this
together.
It's kind of the same rightStatus quo.
Well, you know, insert internetand social media and everyone's,
you know highlight reels andtravels and things, and whether
it's real or not, I couldn'tcare less for this conversation,
but we're exposed to options,to possibilities, and I think
(16:20):
there's a lot of people that aresuffering from knowing and
wanting something more,something different, however
they might describe it, thanwhat they're currently living.
But they are absolutely, andfor very justifiable reasons
from a biological perspective,they're absolutely terrified to
(16:41):
break from the pack right, todisrupt their norm, whatever it
is.
And if you look at this inextremes, right, because here's
the thing I believe most of usare living something that I
identify as functional suffering, right, if you look at this
like an addiction community,right, this functional
alcoholics.
What does that mean to anyonethat's unaware?
It's, you know, essentiallyyour alcoholism or your
(17:01):
addiction of choice.
It's, it's not disruptiveenough to really ruin the things
around you.
Yet, right, you still got thejob, you still got the family,
you still got the thing, and allthe things aren't good.
They're okay, right?
So this functional sufferingand, um, excuse me, if you look
(17:21):
at, look at this through thelens of addiction, you know if
someone's breaking free.
In my case, I was addicted tococaine for a few years when I
started to, when I made thedecision that something had to
change, which, by the way, cameat a rock bottom.
Right, it wasn't just likeseems to always be the case,
right, I wasn't in the middle ofthe best high I ever had and
I'm, like you know what, I'mkind of over this.
No, it happens, you know, inthe trenches, in the gutters,
(17:45):
which I'll get to in a second,because that's a very important
point when I think it comes tochange.
But the thing about theaddiction, you know, breaking
free of any addiction, youabsolutely must break the
environment.
Right, I can't go hang out inthe same places with the same
people that are still doing thesame things.
Right, it's not going to happen, because it's only a matter of
time before you know I'm tiredenough, hungry enough, upset
(18:09):
enough, right, whatever, enoughwhere I don't have the resources
, the mental, cognitiveresources, to withstand a
temptation to withstand a moment, before you know, you're back
in a random bathroom with a keyto your nose, right, or you're
picking up the bottle again, oryou're whatever it is.
And I think what's important tounderstand is that the change
(18:30):
requires pain, period.
That's a hard truth, man.
It requires pain, and that'swhat brought me to the whole
awareness around self-sabotage.
Again, I'll share that in asecond.
But, yeah, it requires pain andI don't think, you know, I
think rock bottom meanssomething different for everyone
.
You know, in my case, you know,I I nearly committed suicide on
a drug crash and I completelyunraveled.
(18:51):
You know, a I'll never forgetthat moment and it happened by
way of, you know, my fiancee,soon to be wife now.
At that time we were a verytoxic place, you know.
We were broken up, we were bothwith different people, so it
was a very messy, messy, messytime.
And I hit this moment, knowingthat she was with somebody where
(19:12):
I just completely unraveledbecause it was nothing that she
was doing that did it.
It was all of the ways in whichI was living that I just could
no longer.
I just felt like it was.
I was too exposed, the pain hadbecome too much right, I could
no longer keep up the facade.
That life was good, you know,and my family all knew about the
(19:32):
sexual abuse now, the drugs,the escorting, the whole world
knew my stuff right.
So there was no place to hideand in that moment I believed
that the only way out was to endit right, officially.
But in that moment I realizedtwo very specific things that I
think are important toacknowledge.
So the first thing was I didn'tpull the trigger, specifically
in my case, because I realizedin that moment that I was on the
(19:55):
verge of it, was I didn't wantmy life to end, I wanted my life
as I knew it to end, and inthat time I feared there was no
other way.
And the second thing came muchlater, after getting the proper
support and through somereflection, and it kind of makes
the first thing a little bitbullshit, which is the no other
way piece, because what I alsorealized was, if I was willing
to go that far and I clearly wasbecause I did it my mother, my
(20:17):
sister and my girlfriend at thetime now fiance was on a
three-way call, not knowingwhere I was, knowing I was in
complete breakdown, holding aloaded weapon, the hopelessness
I put those three women in thefear, all the things.
So if I was willing to go thatfar which I clearly was because
I did it then I no longer hadthe luxury of fear.
(20:39):
What I mean by this is not thatI could no longer experience
fear.
I would no longer, you know,avoid things out of fear happens
all the time but this truth hitme, that I can no longer be
more afraid of my truth than Iwas my own death.
I can no longer be more afraidof my insecurities and my doubts
(21:00):
and all the things than I was.
You know, putting other people's, specifically the three most
important people in my life,through a traumatic morning such
as that, right, so it was thepain that changed everything for
me.
So the two things out of thisthat I think I want to make sure
people understand is it'senvironment and pain.
If your pain hasn't.
(21:22):
Human beings are designed to becomfortable.
If you're comfortable enough,then you'll never make a change.
Why would you?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
It doesn't matter if you know it doesn't matter.
Like who signs up for pain,right?
Like, like that's the thing,like who really wants to sign up
for that?
I mean, I do agree with you,like if I sometimes I think to
myself, if I was, you know, asupreme being and I was going to
create a world that I wantedpeople to learn and do their
(21:49):
work Well suffering, I wouldhave to create cause.
That's the, that's, those arethe best lesson, which is what
you're speaking to pain, and I'dprobably create death, because
it's the best procrastinationkiller.
You don't have the time tofinish it, but that does make it
hard, and, just like you said,it's it's no judgment we're all
(22:12):
terrified.
I mean, I think part of a humancondition is fear, and you know
it is wanting to avoid pain,and yet we have to find a way to
step into it, cause that's whenwe see our sort of best selves.
I'm wondering if you have any,and what I mean by this is where
we see our best selves.
What I mean by that is that wesee what we're capable of
handling.
We also see what we're capableof being in our worst and in our
(22:34):
best, and so, from myperspective though, how do you
get people to take this stepwithout hitting rock bottom, you
know, is there even a way to dothat?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, I think, first, what's important is and this
takes time and that's what I'mlearning.
I'm 40 now and you know I'mmore clear on who I believe
myself to be today than I thinkI was ever before.
And I find that who I trulydesire to be in the life that I
(23:07):
truly desire to have, is muchsimpler than it ever was.
And I say that first because Ithink it's extremely important,
especially in a modern worldwhere we are exposed to so many
things.
We're not only conditioned aschildren to operate in certain
ways, but I think, through theever present influence of other
people's lives and things andwhatever, we can also become
(23:30):
conditioned to believe we'resupposed to be something
specific.
And both of them areconditioned, meaning you know
it's influenced from outside.
And I think it takes a lot ofcourage, first and foremost, to
really lean in and start to, youknow, unpack.
What is it that you truly want?
(23:50):
And the irony is it's probablybehind the thing.
You think you're incapable ofever being right.
You know what would truly like,what lights you up from the
center, right, what, what getsyour soul?
You know moving a little bitversus.
You know your mind.
So you asked how I think, firstand foremost if I'm speaking
(24:13):
very candidly on kind of theprocess that I go through with
people first and foremost it'screating a safe place for them
to explore their truth, honesty,right, and I mean and not
honesty to me being comfortableenough to become honest with
yourself.
Right, because until we tobecome honest with yourself,
right, because until we canbecome honest with ourselves,
nothing's going to change, right, and that was certainly the
(24:35):
truth for me.
So I think, first and foremost,it's becoming honest with
yourself, right, and I dosomething called an honesty
audit, right, a life audit, andthen you know.
From there, I think it's reallygetting clear, not on what you
want to achieve, but who youwant to become, a values-based
perspective versus anachievement based, and whatever
(24:57):
the goal or the achievementsomeone has is is important
information, because that'sgoing to be, it's going to kind
of point our, our sails, right,that tells me you have something
that you desire, enough thatit's going to bring you in
contact to the parts of yourselfthat don't feel qualified or
don't feel enough.
Right, because if there'snothing that, if there's nothing
(25:19):
more in life that you desire arelationship, a career, freedom,
independence, whatever it,health, whatever it is for you,
right?
If there's nothing that youdesire, enough is for you, right
?
If there's nothing that youdesire enough, then you're
there's.
No, you're never going to comein contact to the things that
are keeping you from it, right?
You're never going to touchyour edges, yeah 100.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
This sounds a lot.
So now, now I'm getting it, nowI now I want to pull in
self-sabotage because, if I'mhearing you correctly, as we
tell this story, it's like like,okay, so where do we begin?
When I hear honesty, I hearauthenticity, I hear this idea
of let me be true to myself, andI also hear at least in my way
(25:57):
of working with people it's likethere's different ways to be
authentic to yourself.
You certainly can be authenticto Matthew the addict, jade the
addict, or you can be authenticto Jade currently and Matthew
currently.
But, most importantly, whatyou're talking about is the next
level, human Matthew, or thenext level, human Jade.
This is the future better self,and when you tie yourself to
(26:21):
you know, let's just call itwhat it is purpose, when you tie
yourself to an authenticpurpose that is tied to your
authentic story of struggle,something does seem to begin to
illuminate for people that Ithink does not require and I'm
seeing the same thing that doesnot always require a rock bottom
moment, because it becomes thistractor beam force that starts
(26:44):
moving people towards it.
However and this is the partthat I think the self-sabotage
question comes in it's like aswe begin to get focused on that.
Okay, here it is.
Here is my authentic sort ofstory of struggle, integrated
into my next level human self,of where I want to go.
And now I'm walking throughthat, but I still got all my old
(27:06):
conditioning right.
So it's like I'm stepping intothis new Jade, this new Matthew,
this new person, you thelistener, your new self, and yet
there is still thisconditioning.
It's almost like that littlescared kid or that bullied
teenager or that betrayed 20yearold or whatever it is, is
(27:27):
still psychologically presentand pulling you back constantly.
And I'm wondering is this whereyou see some of the
self-sabotage coming from?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
100%.
And the way that I like to lookat self-sabotage, right?
So I don't know if you'refamiliar with Gay Hendrick's
work, the Big Leap.
He lays out something well,basically he describes the
comfort zone right, with upperlimit, lower limit, and this is
the way that I like to kind ofintroduce what self-sabotage is
really right, because it hasthis negative connotation.
(28:01):
A lot of people assume, you know, it's rooted in weakness or
failure or these kinds of things, and it couldn't be further
from the truth, right?
So if you, if you look atself-sabotage, let's start with
understanding what a comfortzone is.
So we have different comfortzones for different areas of
life finances, health relation,yada, yada.
So if you take any one of these, finances is an easy one to
(28:22):
kind of explain, right.
So for every single one of us,I don't care who you are,
explain, right.
So for every single one of us,I don't care who you are, there
is an upper limit, a number inyour bank account to which, once
you reach that or get above,your behavior starts to change,
right, spend more, do more,whatever it is right.
And it doesn't mean that you'reacting a fool, it just means
the behavior has changed.
And then there's this, thislower limit, which all of us are
(28:45):
more familiar with, right, andcan probably identify a more
specific number at first, whichis that number in your bank that
, if it gets to this or startsto go like if it's when it
starts to get to it or go belowit, heaven forbid.
Behavior changes, right.
All of a sudden you're likeyou're you know you're cutting
off spending, you're changinghabits, you're eating ramen
(29:07):
noodles, whatever it is for youlike.
Behavior changes, right,because it's a you know you've
gotten a little too broke right.
Now.
Everyone's number is different,right?
So this isn't about a literallike you have no money or you
only have a million.
Right, it's whatever it is foryou.
So with that in mind, right.
So lower limit is that momentwhere things have gotten a
(29:29):
little too bad.
My health is too bad, right, Ijust got diagnosed with
something.
I hit rock bottom, right, Ialmost committed suicide.
Well, I can't do that.
So shit's going to have tochange, right?
Or if I don't change, I'mlosing my family.
We're getting divorced, thekids are going to be gone.
You know there's all these rockbottoms, so everyone can
identify what is a little toobad.
But the one that struggle orself-sabotage comes in is the
(29:50):
upper limit.
And this is that kind ofinvisible line that, once we get
here, things are almost alittle too good and, believe it
or not, too much of a good thingcan be really uncomfortable
because it's unfamiliar.
Money is an easy one.
If you look at people that havelived, if you look at the
lottery you ever seen thestudies on this?
Yeah, it's crazy, it's insane,right, and it doesn't make sense
(30:12):
logically, right.
And the same is true with a lotof entertainers and
professional athletes, right.
That struggle that come fromyou know what we might identify
as nothing?
Yada, yada, they, they getdrafted, they make all this
money and within like three tofive years after they retire,
they're bankrupt, literallyRight Worse off than they were
even before they got drafted.
Why?
Why is this the case Right,familiar beyond how we identify
(30:52):
truly, we start to recalibrate.
So self-sabotage is nothingmore than recalibrating back
into what is most familiar, notwhat is best Right.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
So if all you've Go ahead, yeah, well, what I was
going to say is what's reallyinteresting about this and I
love the way you define this andthat's, by the way, for those
of you who are interested like,the Big Leap is a great book.
I think it's been around awhile, but it's definitely gets
into some of this.
The one thing that's reallyinteresting is a lot of this is
unconscious, right, and sopeople do not realize that
(31:18):
they're doing these things, andI guess I'll set it up just as a
metaphor and see if you likethis or you don't like this and
you want to shoot holes in it.
But the way I mightconceptualize this is that
you're standing at a crossroads,right, and you have two roads,
and one is, let's call it,familiar and frustrating.
Right, you start down this roadand you go, this is familiar,
I'm comfortable here, but thenit starts to get frustrating.
(31:41):
Same old thing, repeatedpatterns, recurring obstacles,
stuck emotions.
You're like, oh shit, I'm backkind of where I was.
This sucks.
The other road is sort offearful and foreign.
Right, it starts out fearful.
You don't even want to go downthat road, right?
So you know, fearful versusfamiliar, we're definitely going
to go down the familiar andthen we start heading down that
(32:01):
direction and everything seems alittle different, and so then
we want to jump back over, maybeto the other road.
So this is this whole quote.
That you hear people saying isthat we will take the familiar
devil that we know versus theunfamiliar angel that we don't
know, and this, to me, isunconscious.
It is To me, though and this isthe part that I want you to
(32:24):
shoot holes in, or not To me, Ido think life has a way of
making us conscious to it.
That familiar and frustratingroad has feedback, recurrent
obstacles stuck emotions,repeated patterns, struggles are
repeat, same old people, sameold environment.
(32:45):
It starts to look and feel notvery good, but very much the
same.
The other roads hassynchronicities and
serendipities, and signs andopportunities that always feel
foreign but are always going tomove us up, and, to me, I have
just been struck by this ideathat you can see it so clearly
(33:09):
when you're working with clients.
You could just see itconstantly.
You're pointing these signs outto them, and still people will
walk away from thosesynchronicities, not recognize
those serendipities, not takethose positive signs, and I am
wondering A, how do you see thismetaphor?
And B, and I am wondering A howdo you see this metaphor and, b
how do you walk people throughthis?
(33:30):
If you agree with it or youhave another model for this, I'm
curious.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
No, I love this and I think it's.
You know we're kind of glossingover some of the deeper stuff
here, right, All of this isbiological, not logical, and
that's where I like to startwith people straight off.
It's like you don't have tobecome a neuroscientist to
understand just enough to makethe change.
The way I like to describe itis I'm not interested in
teaching people how to become anelectrician, I just want to
(33:55):
teach you how to turn on thelights, how do you operate the
switch, that's it.
And once you know how to dothat, you can start to make some
significant changes if youdesire, if they're important
enough, and you know.
I think it's important tounderstand that the human mind,
just as any animal, anythingwith life force, right, it's
(34:19):
number one and its sole priorityis self-preservation and
procreation.
Those are the two things, right.
How do we keep the speciesgoing, Starting with ourselves
first and foremost?
Right?
So if you look at all of ourbehaviors through the lens of
safety, through preservation, itbegins to make more sense why
we do what we do, when youunderstand that, again, what is
safe is to be accepted andapproved of by a familiar tribe.
(34:39):
So I always like to look atthis.
It's like the person that gets adiagnosis.
Let's say they heaven forbid,they have a heart attack.
Now they have to start makingsome dietary changes.
And if you're familiar with the, you know what is it?
The standard American diet, theSAD, right.
You can think about it or youcan understand this.
So imagine, Thanksgiving rollsaround, right, they're going to
(35:03):
hang out with all the family,and this person walks in and
says to their loved ones youknow, no, thank you, I'm a vegan
.
You're already giggling.
Why?
Yeah, Right, Because you knowyou're about to catch shit.
At the very least, they're justgoing to give you hell.
Are you one of those people now, or whatever the judgments
might be?
Well, on the surface, you mightjust be saying that you're
giving people a hard time, butunconsciously, to that person
(35:23):
that just said, or knows, thatthey need to be changing their
diet for their betterment, fortheir health, for their heart,
what they're experiencing is, Ihave one of two choices.
I can choose the long-termthreat or the short-term threat,
and the threat that we're goingto often respond to is the one
that is the most immediate, theshortest term.
(35:44):
So if you look at this throughthe lens of, of, you know us
being primitive tribal creatures.
You know what is more likely?
What's more likely to kill mefirst, a heart attack in 10
years if I keep eating like thisagain, or being rejected from
the tribe.
And now I'm out in the wild onmy own Right.
So we're going to say the heartattack, the second heart attack
(36:04):
.
That's tomorrow's problem.
Right now I got to make surethat I'm still accepted and
approved of, so I'm going to,you know, forego what I know I
should be doing and I'm going todo what the group is doing.
So I think it's important tounderstand that.
You know our behaviors, nomatter.
You know, if you look at thison a spectrum, every single
human behavior that exists,everything from extreme
isolation to extreme violenceand everything in between.
(36:26):
Right At its core, it sharesthe same biological need safety,
right and really quick.
The safety piece when it comesto what's most familiar.
The brain is also hardwired toidentify patterns and
predictability is key because ifI can predict it, I can survive
(36:48):
it right when the unpredictableis uncertain.
If it's uncertain, I cannotguarantee I'll survive it right.
So if you think about this in atribal sense, you know if you
and I left the cave many, manymoons ago we went hunting and we
venture off into the wildernessmuch further than we've ever
been before.
Perhaps we heard that the herdis down that way now and we're
(37:09):
going to go check it out.
But we venture much furtherthan we've ever been and, by all
definition, we're lost.
And if you and I are lost, youknow our chances of physical
survival has just gone downsignificantly.
Even worse if we go out byourselves, right so, we're out
there alone and lost, right soif you?
So, if we don't know thethreats, we don't know if
(37:30):
there's other tribes, we don'tknow shelter, we don't know any
of these things Right so,biologically speaking, when you
start to break free from yourfamily of origin my family's
always been employees, but Iwant to start my own business,
Right?
My family's out of shape,overweight, you know.
I want to get healthy.
Right, Abuse, you know myfamily always just screams at
each other.
I want to be in a healthyrelationship.
Whatever the opposite is thatyou're most familiar with, your
(37:53):
nervous system is going toidentify as uncertain.
If it's uncertain, it'sunpredictable.
If it's unpredictable, I cannotguarantee you'll survive it.
Right, Cause it's much saferfor us to understand the threat
that's present than to beblindsided by one we've never
seen.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, not only that, I think one of the things that
I'll add to this conversation,and I know you'll agree with
this.
But not only are we contendingwith this sort of outside thing,
but the conditioning makes it.
We have an internal family aswell, defined as emotions, and
onto that, sensations, stories,memories all of this stuff as
(38:38):
well is also chattering, perhapsmore so.
So even if you do break freefrom your environmental family,
you're not necessarily breakingfree from the internal
sensations, emotions, memories.
Free from the internalsensations, emotions, memories,
stories that are there.
And so then it's like to me,the next piece is that is all
(39:00):
subconscious.
When we hear conditioning, Ithink of programming, I think of
subconscious.
So now I go, and maybe we canbegin wrapping this up with this
, because I want to see whereyou are with this.
I have my thoughts, I want tosee what your thoughts are.
How do we then get in and startunwinding that conditioning?
You frame this up so well whereit's like okay, part of the
(39:20):
process is we have got to getourselves to feel safe, perhaps
choose another type of tribethat will accept us and grab us
and make us feel safe.
But, more importantly, we haveto cultivate a tribe within
chatter, within thoughts, withinbeliefs, within that are not a
logical place.
They come from a verysubconscious place that we need
(39:42):
to begin to unwind and I'mwondering what are your tools,
if any, for that?
I certainly have some, but Iwant to see what yours are.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
You know we could spend weeks talking about this,
but what I would love to do so.
So there's four questions Iliterally have sitting right in
front of me here that I'mworking on that.
I genuinely believe this and Iwant to ask you to punch holes
in it from your perspective aswell, or add to it.
But I believe there's fourquestions that can absolutely
change your life, and I don'tsay that as like hyper.
You know clickable headlines,right like.
(40:15):
I genuinely mean this and thesequestions are rooted to.
You know the, the chemicals inthe brain that are responsible
for how we're, we're motivatedand experiencing lives, right?
Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin,endorphins.
So obviously we haven't gotteninto those.
For anyone, that's like whatthe fuck is that?
Speaker 1 (40:31):
And they're really confused now they will find you
and figure it out.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, yeah, just know that they matter, right, and,
more importantly, just know thatmost of all of us are living in
conflict in a modern world,right, we're, we evolve to live
in nature.
We're living in these modernsocieties that are in complete
contradiction and our system ishijackedacked, first and
foremost.
So how do we regain control?
(40:58):
How do we start making positivechanges?
How do you start developingthat different sense of identity
and all the kind of things fromwithin, right?
So these four questions, Ibelieve, will set the tone if
you're willing to lean into them, right?
So the first question I havehere comes down to diet, into to
them, right?
So the first question I havehere is comes down to diet,
(41:18):
right, our mood serotonin 90 ofit or so is produced in your gut
.
You know.
So what you, you are, what youeat.
All right, they say that for areason.
So if you're eating like shit,you're gonna be shit, you're
gonna feel like and I say be notas a judgment, as a way you
feel about yourself, right?
So the the question to askyourself and this is confronting
for all of us, especially me,who still eats like a 12 year
old way too often, but if youlook at the food you're eating.
(41:38):
Ask yourself could the foodthat I'm eating have existed on
Earth before humans got here?
If the answer is no, there's agood chance that it's not full
of the things the body actuallyneeds.
So ask yourself could the foodthat I'm eating exist on earth
before humans got here?
Frosted flakes aren't going tomake the cut.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, definitely not, unfortunately for me.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Unfortunately, right, look, I'm angry about it too.
Pizza Fuck, not the pizza thatI've been eating, at least.
So that's the first thing.
If all you do is change that,you are going to significantly
change the way that you feelabout yourself, your energy
levels, your mood, yourconfidence.
So much of that's going toevolve, right.
So that's question number one.
(42:20):
The second question is directlyrelated to dopamine, which we
could spend hours on, but thething that and this really gets
into the self-sabotage right,because that's really a dopamine
conversation.
So ask yourself right, is thebehavior that you're doing?
Right?
Is the pleasure immediate ordelayed?
All right, when I take a bumpof cocaine, that shit is
(42:44):
immediate.
Right, when I go work out, thatis delayed.
But here's the thing.
So when you look at thisthrough the lens of and I'll put
it more cleanly, this is how Ioften ask people to look at
their behaviors If you beginmaking decisions based on how
you feel after versus how youfelt before, you can completely
change your life.
Right Before, I didn't want togo to the gym.
How do I feel after I've gone Ahundred percent Out?
(43:08):
I'm excited, I'm motivated, I'mconfident.
Right?
You know, pornography is a bigone in our lives and in my life.
So I plant that seed to saythis like how do I feel before
versus how do I feel after.
Before I'm stressed, I'manxious, I have all these
problems, right, I engage withthe pornography after, right,
yeah, I get a temporary relief,but then I'm immediately hit
with shame and guilt and, likeyou, know all the things.
(43:30):
So if I start making decisionsthis is what I've done in my
life based on how I feel after,and I become more attached to
that.
By the way, it's how I got offcocaine when I was in the throes
of temptation, all I couldthink about is the high.
But when I ran that full cycleto the crash, all of a sudden I
was like, absolutely not, I wantnothing to do with it.
So how do you feel after?
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yep, a hundred percent Perfect.
And then the third one reallyjust stems into the oxytocin,
right.
So connection, love, bonding,everything.
And it's what can I do to makesomeone else happy today?
Love that one.
You just open a door, right.
You don't have to pay offsomeone's college tuition.
Or you don't have to change theworld in a day, right.
(44:14):
You could just simply, you know, if you see a shoes they're
wearing and they catch your eye,give them a compliment right.
To a complete stranger, itdoesn't matter what it is, the
littlest things matter.
We all say it.
So what can I do to makesomeone else's day better?
If you just do a little more ofthat, you're going to feel
better.
And the fourth one really isn'ta question, it's more of a
statement and it kind of wrapsup everything we've been talking
(44:36):
about.
And it's if you feel stuck, ifyou feel afraid, if you feel
lost.
Understand that the hard thingand the right thing are often
the same thing.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
If we just stop avoiding.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Everything changes.
It has to right Cause andeffect.
So again, just a quick recapCould the food on your plate
have existed before humans gothere?
If it's yes, you're moving in agood direction.
How quickly does the behaviorcreate pleasure or feelings of
pride?
If I start making decisionsbased on how you feel after
(45:10):
right and the goal is to feelproud of yourself and what can I
do to make someone else's dayhappy or day better, however you
wish to look at it, and thenthe hard thing and the right
thing are often the same thing.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Yeah, I think that's so well said.
It doesn't surprise me.
You and I are always thinkingalong the same lines.
This is very similar to some ofthe work I do with my purpose
statements with individuals.
I think it's huge and I thinkpart of what it does is it's
really setting people up to belooking at that next level,
human, authentic self, not thebase level.
(45:44):
You know, past self and not thecurrent self.
You don't want to be authenticto the current you because you
want to change.
So that would be, you know, inopposition to that.
And the final thing I would sayto wrap us up is there's got to
be a way to get us out of theconscious programming of the
current situation, and thesefour things, certainly with
(46:08):
practice, do that, and that'show I would be looking at that.
I think it's absolutely genius.
So, my brother, I reallyappreciate the time today.
I really love this conversation.
Let's see if we can make itsooner next time before we talk
again instead of two years later.
But, matthew, you better hang onthe line.
But for all of you who want tocheck out Matthew, what's your
(46:31):
handles on Instagram and wherecan they get you?
Speaker 2 (46:34):
It's just literally at Matthew Pates.
I start there, I keep it simple.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Yeah, and Pates is P-A-E-T-Z.
Everyone so catch him onInstagram.
Really, pay close attention tohim.
He's incredibly generous withhis work.
Good friend of mine, brother,stay on the line just real quick
.
I want to make sure we upload.
But for all of you, thanks forhanging out on the show and we
will see.
Welcome to the show everybody.
My name is Dr Jay Tita.
This is the Next Level HumanPodcast and I have a good friend
of mine and past guest of theshow, matthew Pate, on with us
and my brother.
It's been a while since I haveseen you.
You know we were going back andforth on Instagram.
It's hard.
It's been hard.
I think we've been going backand forth about a year.
Be like yo, let's do anotherpodcast.
Let's get together.
We finally made it happen.
(00:20):
We're going to podcast.
Let's get together.
We finally made it happen.
I'm glad we've got like.
Both of us have an hour of timethat we can get this
conversation in.
And here's the thing, man.
I mean I always love yourcontent, I always love your
perspective, and one of thethings that you just told me
that you're heavily into and Iknow you've been dealing with a
lot is this idea ofself-sabotage.
(00:42):
And I actually love the idea ofthis as just a straight up, you
know title for a podcast,because it's one of those things
that everybody is strugglingwith.
I don't know a person,entrepreneur, successful person,
people who have not been ableto make it.
Everywhere we look, individualsare struggling with this idea
(01:04):
of self-sabotage, and I want toget into this with you.
Where does this come from?
Why are we humans so haunted bythis and what do we do about
that?
And I guess, just for those whodon't remember your first show,
why don't we just start with alittle bit of an introduction
and then let's get into this,because I know you have some
unique sort of ways of talkingabout self-sabotage.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Jake man, I appreciate you and from here on
out I want you to introduce meanywhere we go.
Yeah, you got it, brother.
Now this is a big one for me.
But before I launch into it, alittle bit about my background.
So I've been in the personaldevelopment, psychology, healing
, call it what you wish spacefor a little over a decade.
My background is in traumatherapy.
(01:50):
I think it's more true todaythan ever you don't get into
psychology because you have yourshit together.
Me, you know, I I discovered itas I started to face and lean
into the things that I wasreally struggling with.
A lot of my early childhoodtraumas that you know had reared
its head and started to impactmy life in ways that were
(02:13):
unacceptable for me specificallyand the people around me.
You know, and I won't, thisshow isn't about all that, but
you know, the early childhoodsexual abuse stuff, struggles
with drug addiction was anescort for a while, you know,
you name it.
I'm really fun at parties, yeah, yeah, or I used to be, and I
(02:33):
share that.
Before we get into self-sabotage, because you know it's
important to understand kind ofthe origin stories, the
narratives, the identities thatwe operate from, because that's
going to really run the show andeven as you start to heal
through things, you're going tobe introduced to stuff you've
never experienced, which isgoing to trigger all the old
ways Right.
And another reason why I like toshare that too is because you
know I struggled a lot withimposter syndrome in this space,
(02:55):
I think, as many people do, inwhatever career they've chosen,
and you know fears of not havingthe you know, the specific
degree or the certifications orwhatever it may have been, for
you know, when I was coming up,what I do believe gives me the
unique ability in some casesunique advantage to support
(03:16):
people in the way that I do ismy personal story and it's you
know.
I know how trauma works behindclosed doors and it's not just
regurgitating some fancy book Ionce read, and you know my life
has really given a lot ofinsight into how I believe other
people are experiencing theirstruggles as well, which again
leads me to the self-sabotagepiece.
So I'll pause on that for asecond, because I could riff on
(03:38):
this for hours.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, and you know this.
That's really where I wanted tostart with you, man, is that
you know there's this idea.
You have been through whatpeople would call you know that
capital T traumas, Right.
So, and this is this is where Iwant to unpack with you, to
sort of start, because I thinkyou are given someone who has
gone through a quote, capital Ttrauma, whereas most people have
(04:02):
not trauma, whereas most peoplehave not, and what I want to
try to unpack with you assomeone who has the credibility
from that perspective, which isa kind of a horrible way to say
it right, it's like no one wouldwish this on anyone, but these
experiences do inform in a waythat nothing else can.
One of the things I've beenstruck by is that I see so many
(04:23):
people who are struggling isstruck by is that I see so many
people who are struggling withself-sabotage, with
trauma-related issues that wouldnever define themselves as
having trauma, and so one of thethings that I feel like is
important to begin to understandis that just because it may not
be a capital T trauma does notmean that this is not impacting
(04:48):
you, and I'll just set this upfor you and see where you want
to go with this.
I carry this mud, misguided,unconscious decisions.
You know I always got anacronym right, I love it.
Yeah, it's like.
So this mud right.
When we are young teenage years, usually childhood years it
comes when ever we're exposed toa situation that we don't have
the knowledge, experience,wisdom, maturity to deal with.
(05:10):
That's why it's misguided,because we don't have the tools
yet to make sense of it.
It's unconscious because itfollows us around like a shadow,
and this is the controversialpart.
I think it's a decision because,like it or not, and whether
we're aware of it or not.
Decision because, like it ornot, and whether we're aware of
it or not, we did choose to seethe world and ourselves a
particular way as a result of it.
(05:31):
And this can happen in my mindand this is a question, but this
can happen in my mind, whetherit's a capital T trauma, sexual
abuse, war, physical abuse, thiskind of stuff, or whether it's
just being bullied at school or,in my case, being left at a
playground, a bad park, when Iwas about five or six years old,
through no fact of my parentsat all, just miscommunication.
(05:53):
I was left there for probablyabout an hour in the dark.
It actually had a traumaticimpact on me.
Now no one would say that's atrauma, nor is it anyone's quote
fault, but it certainly had animpact on my trusting the world
and trusting people, and so I'mwondering how you unpack this
for people, because I know noteveryone you work with or I work
(06:15):
with is going to be people whohave dealt with capital T
traumas.
Yet they are dealing with theshadow or the ghost of what we
might call trauma work and theydon't necessarily know it.
I guess I'm wondering do youagree with that?
How do you see that and howwould you explain some of this?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Absolutely yeah, for the sake of this conversation.
What I would be interested todoing is what if we?
What if we change the wordtrauma to conditioning right?
Because much of what we'redealing with and a lot of the
you know quote, unquote a lot ofthe behaviors that we would
identify, I'll say it this way,a lot of the behaviors that we
identify or would identify asself-sabotage really stems from,
(06:58):
you know, chronic conditioningRight.
And so if someone looks attheir life and they're like,
okay, I don't have any traumas,fair, I'm not here to prove that
theory wrong.
I'm not interested in, you know, taking shovels to people's
past and you know, pointing atthe things and be like, no,
that's trauma.
See, like absolutely not.
What I'm most interested in iswhat is the story, what is the
(07:20):
narrative, what are the momentsin your life that that still
stick out or still hold a charge?
And then, from that experience,what is the message you adopted
or what is the identity you mayhave assumed a belief about
yourself, if you will because ofthose experiences.
And it's interesting becauseyou brought up the age of five,
(07:41):
right, and this was one of thebiggest aha moments when I was
going through my development andunderstanding, like you know,
why do I have the beliefs I doabout myself, why do I have the
patterns that I have, et cetera.
It's when I really began tounderstand that during our
formative years, specificallyzero to six, you know, before we
have the cognitive ability toidentify self from other right,
(08:03):
I am separate from mother, I'mseparate from father, I'm
separate from the household thatI'm being raised in.
During those zero to six years,as you well know, we are
constantly absorbing informationwithout any ability to
challenge it or any.
We don't have the experience tosee multiple perspectives or
any of these kinds of things.
So you know whatever ishappening to us at perspectives
(08:24):
or any of these kind of things,so you know whatever is
happening to us, at that time weare absorbing as fact, whether
that's a belief about ourselves,a belief about the world, et
cetera.
And it's also interestingbecause you know we, as human
beings, we're tribal creatures,you know, which just simply
means we require the acceptanceand the approval of a tribe in
order to survive, which justsimply means we require the
(08:46):
acceptance and the approval of atribe in order to survive.
So, if you think about this,during zero to six, during the
years that we are developing asignificant piece of our
identity or sense of self.
We are also 100 percentdependent creatures, meaning the
strategies that we must adoptin order to survive, to seek
approval and acceptance, is aperformance based.
(09:08):
If I act, I receive.
If I act a certain way, myfather will tell me he loves me.
If I act a certain way, mymother will hold me.
If I act a certain way, youknow, so, on and so forth.
You get fed, you get held, youget all the things.
So many of us develop thisidentity or this belief that we
must perform in order to beenough to be accepted, to be
(09:29):
safe, to be anything, and atthat stage of life, that's 100%
evolve.
But what is left behind withoutif on default it gets left
behind, right, it requiresintention is our identities, our
(09:52):
sense of self.
So a lot of the chronicconditioning stems from the
messaging we received when wewere young.
If you were told constantlythat you're too small, right,
you're not old enough, you'renot smart enough, you're not
whatever enough, if you look atthat and you say, okay, that
must be true, because I've heardthat messaging so much, you
(10:13):
know, you don't have the abilityto say, of course, I'm too
young, I'm five.
You just adopt this belief thatyou're too young, right, so you
can be 55, holding all thedegrees and the gray hairs and
the wisdom, and in your mind,you're still too young to be
respected, too young to bewhatever Right, because it has
nothing to do with your age, haseverything to do with that
belief.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You know, this is really interesting.
The very last word you saidbelief, right, like I think,
like ultimately, that's what itis right.
So from my perspective, I go,let me just unpack a little bit
and I always love the way youput things, but let me just
repeat it in a slightlydifferent way and then let's
expand on it.
To me, I see it as like okay,so this conditioning, what's
being conditioned?
I would say those are stories,narratives about what the world
(11:00):
is like and who I am.
So I love the idea ofconditioning and I love these
stories.
Now, take this conditioning anda bunch of these kinds of
stories and put them together.
You start to formulate beliefs.
Put these beliefs together, youstart to formulate an identity.
Put these identities togetherand this is the part where I
think is really interesting.
Notice, I said identitiesbecause we are not one identity
(11:26):
in my mind, but we are many andwe play different roles.
Those become our habits andbehaviors and, from my
perspective, what we do not youand I and people who do our work
, but what most of theself-development world does is
it's a habit and behaviororiented approach.
Change your habits, change yourbehaviors, change your life.
(11:47):
What you're essentiallypointing to here is like,
actually, no, it's aboutchanging your identity.
But you also went one stepdeeper and you said, no, it's
about changing your beliefs.
And there was even one stepdifferent.
It's about changing yourconditioning and your stories.
And you know, it doesn'tsurprise me, matthew, because
you and I, I think, are from thefirst time we met.
It's like we, we to us.
(12:07):
Obviously, we probably read thesame things and listen to the
same individuals, but the onething that I want to add to this
is I want you to unpack this inany other direction you want,
(12:29):
but from my perspective, whatI'm most interested in is okay,
like I know a lot of people now.
We talk to a lot of people.
A lot of people go okay, well,I've done therapy people.
A lot of people go okay, well,I've done therapy, I processed
this stuff.
I'm aware of some of thesestories, these beliefs, these
narratives.
I've done some coaching, soI've tried changing my habits
and behaviors and working onmotivation.
Maybe even I've done someenergy work.
(12:51):
I've taken some ayahuasca andI've done some chakra clearings
and some Reiki work or whateverit is.
My thing is, none of this seemsto necessarily work that well
and I'm wondering if you're, ifyou see that too, and why, and
what is the approach?
(13:12):
Because I do think there's alot of people out there like,
yes, I get this, I've heard thisand, by the way, I think
there's a lot of people who'venever heard this, so this will
be their first time but still,one of the things that I think
happens in this trauma space iswe do talk an awful lot around
why it's occurring and why we'rebehaving the particular way,
but there doesn't seem to be awhole lot of talk about how to
(13:34):
address the change.
Now, you've been someone who'sbeen through this, so I am
interested in that.
Now, of course, I want you tounpack and add any other layers
you want onto the story we justtold.
But I do want to eventually getto this question of why is this
not working?
Some of these tools, thesetraditional approaches, for most
people.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah.
So a couple of things.
What I'll say first is well,there's a couple of little
quotes here that I'll start with.
So the first thing is I believeto my core that we all have two
lives.
This quote's pretty well known,but I do.
Or another way to say it islike we have the life that we're
capable of living and mostpeople never get out of the
(14:14):
conditioned, and that's theunfortunate piece of the
conditioned and that's theunfortunate piece.
Another thing that I see truein myself, first and foremost,
and I certainly see it true inthose who I've worked with and
I'm close to, which is a humanbeing, quite literally, will
(14:35):
never outperform the opinionthey have of themselves Hard
stuff.
So if you you know, you hear itall the time If you believe you
can, you believe you can't,you're right.
So you know, I think that's areally difficult thing for us to
face, even when we are aware ofit.
Right, we'll never outperformthe opinion of ourselves.
(14:55):
Now the unpacking why do I thinkthe majority of people never
get out of this?
Very first thing that comes upfor me is the majority of people
will never leave theenvironments that they were
raised in, period, if we're justtalking about majority numbers.
The mass majority of humanbeings are born in an area, born
in the household, born in afamily dynamic and a community
that they never leave.
And I don't just meanphysically, I mean you could
(15:16):
move a couple hours away, right,but if you're still deeply
entwined to whatever tribe youwere kind of raised in and
around, you are going to operatein perfect alignment with
what's acceptable to thosepeople, to those communities.
And oftentimes, as we grow upand become adults, I think,
especially in a modern worldwhere we have so much exposure
(15:36):
to so many different ways ofliving now, right, I think so
many of us are, you know,suffering, quite frankly, from
possibility.
It wasn't that long ago.
You remove the internet and youknow we're just hanging out in
our schools, our churches, ourjobs and, hey, this is just who
we are, this is what we do.
And as much as you might be,you know, battling, with some
(15:58):
struggles here and there, butlike, hey, we're all in this
together.
It's kind of the same rightStatus quo.
Well, you know, insert internetand social media and everyone's,
you know highlight reels andtravels and things, and whether
it's real or not, I couldn'tcare less for this conversation,
but we're exposed to options,to possibilities, and I think
(16:20):
there's a lot of people that aresuffering from knowing and
wanting something more,something different, however
they might describe it, thanwhat they're currently living.
But they are absolutely, andfor very justifiable reasons
from a biological perspective,they're absolutely terrified to
(16:41):
break from the pack right, todisrupt their norm, whatever it
is.
And if you look at this inextremes, right, because here's
the thing I believe most of usare living something that I
identify as functional suffering, right, if you look at this
like an addiction community,right, this functional
alcoholics.
What does that mean to anyonethat's unaware?
It's, you know, essentiallyyour alcoholism or your
(17:01):
addiction of choice.
It's, it's not disruptiveenough to really ruin the things
around you.
Yet, right, you still got thejob, you still got the family,
you still got the thing, and allthe things aren't good.
They're okay, right?
So this functional sufferingand, um, excuse me, if you look
(17:21):
at, look at this through thelens of addiction, you know if
someone's breaking free.
In my case, I was addicted tococaine for a few years when I
started to, when I made thedecision that something had to
change, which, by the way, cameat a rock bottom.
Right, it wasn't just likeseems to always be the case,
right, I wasn't in the middle ofthe best high I ever had and
I'm, like you know what, I'mkind of over this.
No, it happens, you know, inthe trenches, in the gutters,
(17:45):
which I'll get to in a second,because that's a very important
point when I think it comes tochange.
But the thing about theaddiction, you know, breaking
free of any addiction, youabsolutely must break the
environment.
Right, I can't go hang out inthe same places with the same
people that are still doing thesame things.
Right, it's not going to happen, because it's only a matter of
time before you know I'm tiredenough, hungry enough, upset
(18:09):
enough, right, whatever, enoughwhere I don't have the resources
, the mental, cognitiveresources, to withstand a
temptation to withstand a moment, before you know, you're back
in a random bathroom with a keyto your nose, right, or you're
picking up the bottle again, oryou're whatever it is.
And I think what's important tounderstand is that the change
(18:30):
requires pain, period.
That's a hard truth, man.
It requires pain, and that'swhat brought me to the whole
awareness around self-sabotage.
Again, I'll share that in asecond.
But, yeah, it requires pain andI don't think, you know, I
think rock bottom meanssomething different for everyone
.
You know, in my case, you know,I I nearly committed suicide on
a drug crash and I completelyunraveled.
(18:51):
You know, a I'll never forgetthat moment and it happened by
way of, you know, my fiancee,soon to be wife now.
At that time we were a verytoxic place, you know.
We were broken up, we were bothwith different people, so it
was a very messy, messy, messytime.
And I hit this moment, knowingthat she was with somebody where
(19:12):
I just completely unraveledbecause it was nothing that she
was doing that did it.
It was all of the ways in whichI was living that I just could
no longer.
I just felt like it was.
I was too exposed, the pain hadbecome too much right, I could
no longer keep up the facade.
That life was good, you know,and my family all knew about the
(19:32):
sexual abuse now, the drugs,the escorting, the whole world
knew my stuff right.
So there was no place to hideand in that moment I believed
that the only way out was to endit right, officially.
But in that moment I realizedtwo very specific things that I
think are important toacknowledge.
So the first thing was I didn'tpull the trigger, specifically
in my case, because I realizedin that moment that I was on the
(19:55):
verge of it, was I didn't wantmy life to end, I wanted my life
as I knew it to end, and inthat time I feared there was no
other way.
And the second thing came muchlater, after getting the proper
support and through somereflection, and it kind of makes
the first thing a little bitbullshit, which is the no other
way piece, because what I alsorealized was, if I was willing
to go that far and I clearly wasbecause I did it my mother, my
(20:17):
sister and my girlfriend at thetime now fiance was on a
three-way call, not knowingwhere I was, knowing I was in
complete breakdown, holding aloaded weapon, the hopelessness
I put those three women in thefear, all the things.
So if I was willing to go thatfar which I clearly was because
I did it then I no longer hadthe luxury of fear.
(20:39):
What I mean by this is not thatI could no longer experience
fear.
I would no longer, you know,avoid things out of fear happens
all the time but this truth hitme, that I can no longer be
more afraid of my truth than Iwas my own death.
I can no longer be more afraidof my insecurities and my doubts
(21:00):
and all the things than I was.
You know, putting other people's, specifically the three most
important people in my life,through a traumatic morning such
as that, right, so it was thepain that changed everything for
me.
So the two things out of thisthat I think I want to make sure
people understand is it'senvironment and pain.
If your pain hasn't.
(21:22):
Human beings are designed to becomfortable.
If you're comfortable enough,then you'll never make a change.
Why would you?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
It doesn't matter if you know it doesn't matter.
Like who signs up for pain,right?
Like, like that's the thing,like who really wants to sign up
for that?
I mean, I do agree with you,like if I sometimes I think to
myself, if I was, you know, asupreme being and I was going to
create a world that I wantedpeople to learn and do their
(21:49):
work Well suffering, I wouldhave to create cause.
That's the, that's, those arethe best lesson, which is what
you're speaking to pain, and I'dprobably create death, because
it's the best procrastinationkiller.
You don't have the time tofinish it, but that does make it
hard, and, just like you said,it's it's no judgment we're all
(22:12):
terrified.
I mean, I think part of a humancondition is fear, and you know
it is wanting to avoid pain,and yet we have to find a way to
step into it, cause that's whenwe see our sort of best selves.
I'm wondering if you have any,and what I mean by this is where
we see our best selves.
What I mean by that is that wesee what we're capable of
handling.
We also see what we're capableof being in our worst and in our
(22:34):
best, and so, from myperspective though, how do you
get people to take this stepwithout hitting rock bottom, you
know, is there even a way to dothat?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, I think, first, what's important is and this
takes time and that's what I'mlearning.
I'm 40 now and you know I'mmore clear on who I believe
myself to be today than I thinkI was ever before.
And I find that who I trulydesire to be in the life that I
(23:07):
truly desire to have, is muchsimpler than it ever was.
And I say that first because Ithink it's extremely important,
especially in a modern worldwhere we are exposed to so many
things.
We're not only conditioned aschildren to operate in certain
ways, but I think, through theever present influence of other
people's lives and things andwhatever, we can also become
(23:30):
conditioned to believe we'resupposed to be something
specific.
And both of them areconditioned, meaning you know
it's influenced from outside.
And I think it takes a lot ofcourage, first and foremost, to
really lean in and start to, youknow, unpack.
What is it that you truly want?
(23:50):
And the irony is it's probablybehind the thing.
You think you're incapable ofever being right.
You know what would truly like,what lights you up from the
center, right, what, what getsyour soul?
You know moving a little bitversus.
You know your mind.
So you asked how I think, firstand foremost if I'm speaking
(24:13):
very candidly on kind of theprocess that I go through with
people first and foremost it'screating a safe place for them
to explore their truth, honesty,right, and I mean and not
honesty to me being comfortableenough to become honest with
yourself.
Right, because until we tobecome honest with yourself,
right, because until we canbecome honest with ourselves,
nothing's going to change, right, and that was certainly the
(24:35):
truth for me.
So I think, first and foremost,it's becoming honest with
yourself, right, and I dosomething called an honesty
audit, right, a life audit, andthen you know.
From there, I think it's reallygetting clear, not on what you
want to achieve, but who youwant to become, a values-based
perspective versus anachievement based, and whatever
(24:57):
the goal or the achievementsomeone has is is important
information, because that'sgoing to be, it's going to kind
of point our, our sails, right,that tells me you have something
that you desire, enough thatit's going to bring you in
contact to the parts of yourselfthat don't feel qualified or
don't feel enough.
Right, because if there'snothing that, if there's nothing
(25:19):
more in life that you desire arelationship, a career, freedom,
independence, whatever it,health, whatever it is for you,
right?
If there's nothing that youdesire, enough is for you, right
?
If there's nothing that youdesire enough, then you're
there's.
No, you're never going to comein contact to the things that
are keeping you from it, right?
You're never going to touchyour edges, yeah 100.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
This sounds a lot.
So now, now I'm getting it, nowI now I want to pull in
self-sabotage because, if I'mhearing you correctly, as we
tell this story, it's like like,okay, so where do we begin?
When I hear honesty, I hearauthenticity, I hear this idea
of let me be true to myself, andI also hear at least in my way
(25:57):
of working with people it's likethere's different ways to be
authentic to yourself.
You certainly can be authenticto Matthew the addict, jade the
addict, or you can be authenticto Jade currently and Matthew
currently.
But, most importantly, whatyou're talking about is the next
level, human Matthew, or thenext level, human Jade.
This is the future better self,and when you tie yourself to
(26:21):
you know, let's just call itwhat it is purpose, when you tie
yourself to an authenticpurpose that is tied to your
authentic story of struggle,something does seem to begin to
illuminate for people that Ithink does not require and I'm
seeing the same thing that doesnot always require a rock bottom
moment, because it becomes thistractor beam force that starts
(26:44):
moving people towards it.
However and this is the partthat I think the self-sabotage
question comes in it's like aswe begin to get focused on that.
Okay, here it is.
Here is my authentic sort ofstory of struggle, integrated
into my next level human self,of where I want to go.
And now I'm walking throughthat, but I still got all my old
(27:06):
conditioning right.
So it's like I'm stepping intothis new Jade, this new Matthew,
this new person, you thelistener, your new self, and yet
there is still thisconditioning.
It's almost like that littlescared kid or that bullied
teenager or that betrayed 20yearold or whatever it is, is
(27:27):
still psychologically presentand pulling you back constantly.
And I'm wondering is this whereyou see some of the
self-sabotage coming from?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
100%.
And the way that I like to lookat self-sabotage, right?
So I don't know if you'refamiliar with Gay Hendrick's
work, the Big Leap.
He lays out something well,basically he describes the
comfort zone right, with upperlimit, lower limit, and this is
the way that I like to kind ofintroduce what self-sabotage is
really right, because it hasthis negative connotation.
(28:01):
A lot of people assume, you know, it's rooted in weakness or
failure or these kinds of things, and it couldn't be further
from the truth, right?
So if you, if you look atself-sabotage, let's start with
understanding what a comfortzone is.
So we have different comfortzones for different areas of
life finances, health relation,yada, yada.
So if you take any one of these, finances is an easy one to
(28:22):
kind of explain, right.
So for every single one of us,I don't care who you are,
explain, right.
So for every single one of us,I don't care who you are, there
is an upper limit, a number inyour bank account to which, once
you reach that or get above,your behavior starts to change,
right, spend more, do more,whatever it is right.
And it doesn't mean that you'reacting a fool, it just means
the behavior has changed.
And then there's this, thislower limit, which all of us are
(28:45):
more familiar with, right, andcan probably identify a more
specific number at first, whichis that number in your bank that
, if it gets to this or startsto go like if it's when it
starts to get to it or go belowit, heaven forbid.
Behavior changes, right.
All of a sudden you're likeyou're you know you're cutting
off spending, you're changinghabits, you're eating ramen
(29:07):
noodles, whatever it is for youlike.
Behavior changes, right,because it's a you know you've
gotten a little too broke right.
Now.
Everyone's number is different,right?
So this isn't about a literallike you have no money or you
only have a million.
Right, it's whatever it is foryou.
So with that in mind, right.
So lower limit is that momentwhere things have gotten a
(29:29):
little too bad.
My health is too bad, right, Ijust got diagnosed with
something.
I hit rock bottom, right, Ialmost committed suicide.
Well, I can't do that.
So shit's going to have tochange, right?
Or if I don't change, I'mlosing my family.
We're getting divorced, thekids are going to be gone.
You know there's all these rockbottoms, so everyone can
identify what is a little toobad.
But the one that struggle orself-sabotage comes in is the
(29:50):
upper limit.
And this is that kind ofinvisible line that, once we get
here, things are almost alittle too good and, believe it
or not, too much of a good thingcan be really uncomfortable
because it's unfamiliar.
Money is an easy one.
If you look at people that havelived, if you look at the
lottery you ever seen thestudies on this?
Yeah, it's crazy, it's insane,right, and it doesn't make sense
(30:12):
logically, right.
And the same is true with a lotof entertainers and
professional athletes, right.
That struggle that come fromyou know what we might identify
as nothing?
Yada, yada, they, they getdrafted, they make all this
money and within like three tofive years after they retire,
they're bankrupt, literallyRight Worse off than they were
even before they got drafted.
Why?
Why is this the case Right,familiar beyond how we identify
(30:52):
truly, we start to recalibrate.
So self-sabotage is nothingmore than recalibrating back
into what is most familiar, notwhat is best Right.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
So if all you've Go ahead, yeah, well, what I was
going to say is what's reallyinteresting about this and I
love the way you define this andthat's, by the way, for those
of you who are interested like,the Big Leap is a great book.
I think it's been around awhile, but it's definitely gets
into some of this.
The one thing that's reallyinteresting is a lot of this is
unconscious, right, and sopeople do not realize that
(31:18):
they're doing these things, andI guess I'll set it up just as a
metaphor and see if you likethis or you don't like this and
you want to shoot holes in it.
But the way I mightconceptualize this is that
you're standing at a crossroads,right, and you have two roads,
and one is, let's call it,familiar and frustrating.
Right, you start down this roadand you go, this is familiar,
I'm comfortable here, but thenit starts to get frustrating.
(31:41):
Same old thing, repeatedpatterns, recurring obstacles,
stuck emotions.
You're like, oh shit, I'm backkind of where I was.
This sucks.
The other road is sort offearful and foreign.
Right, it starts out fearful.
You don't even want to go downthat road, right?
So you know, fearful versusfamiliar, we're definitely going
to go down the familiar andthen we start heading down that
(32:01):
direction and everything seems alittle different, and so then
we want to jump back over, maybeto the other road.
So this is this whole quote.
That you hear people saying isthat we will take the familiar
devil that we know versus theunfamiliar angel that we don't
know, and this, to me, isunconscious.
It is To me, though and this isthe part that I want you to
(32:24):
shoot holes in, or not To me, Ido think life has a way of
making us conscious to it.
That familiar and frustratingroad has feedback, recurrent
obstacles stuck emotions,repeated patterns, struggles are
repeat, same old people, sameold environment.
(32:45):
It starts to look and feel notvery good, but very much the
same.
The other roads hassynchronicities and
serendipities, and signs andopportunities that always feel
foreign but are always going tomove us up, and, to me, I have
just been struck by this ideathat you can see it so clearly
(33:09):
when you're working with clients.
You could just see itconstantly.
You're pointing these signs outto them, and still people will
walk away from thosesynchronicities, not recognize
those serendipities, not takethose positive signs, and I am
wondering A, how do you see thismetaphor?
And B, and I am wondering A howdo you see this metaphor and, b
how do you walk people throughthis?
(33:30):
If you agree with it or youhave another model for this, I'm
curious.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
No, I love this and I think it's.
You know we're kind of glossingover some of the deeper stuff
here, right, All of this isbiological, not logical, and
that's where I like to startwith people straight off.
It's like you don't have tobecome a neuroscientist to
understand just enough to makethe change.
The way I like to describe itis I'm not interested in
teaching people how to become anelectrician, I just want to
(33:55):
teach you how to turn on thelights, how do you operate the
switch, that's it.
And once you know how to dothat, you can start to make some
significant changes if youdesire, if they're important
enough, and you know.
I think it's important tounderstand that the human mind,
just as any animal, anythingwith life force, right, it's
(34:19):
number one and its sole priorityis self-preservation and
procreation.
Those are the two things, right.
How do we keep the speciesgoing, Starting with ourselves
first and foremost?
Right?
So if you look at all of ourbehaviors through the lens of
safety, through preservation, itbegins to make more sense why
we do what we do, when youunderstand that, again, what is
safe is to be accepted andapproved of by a familiar tribe.
(34:39):
So I always like to look atthis.
It's like the person that gets adiagnosis.
Let's say they heaven forbid,they have a heart attack.
Now they have to start makingsome dietary changes.
And if you're familiar with the, you know what is it?
The standard American diet, theSAD, right.
You can think about it or youcan understand this.
So imagine, Thanksgiving rollsaround, right, they're going to
(35:03):
hang out with all the family,and this person walks in and
says to their loved ones youknow, no, thank you, I'm a vegan
.
You're already giggling.
Why?
Yeah, Right, Because you knowyou're about to catch shit.
At the very least, they're justgoing to give you hell.
Are you one of those people now, or whatever the judgments
might be?
Well, on the surface, you mightjust be saying that you're
giving people a hard time, butunconsciously, to that person
(35:23):
that just said, or knows, thatthey need to be changing their
diet for their betterment, fortheir health, for their heart,
what they're experiencing is, Ihave one of two choices.
I can choose the long-termthreat or the short-term threat,
and the threat that we're goingto often respond to is the one
that is the most immediate, theshortest term.
(35:44):
So if you look at this throughthe lens of, of, you know us
being primitive tribal creatures.
You know what is more likely?
What's more likely to kill mefirst, a heart attack in 10
years if I keep eating like thisagain, or being rejected from
the tribe.
And now I'm out in the wild onmy own Right.
So we're going to say the heartattack, the second heart attack
(36:04):
.
That's tomorrow's problem.
Right now I got to make surethat I'm still accepted and
approved of, so I'm going to,you know, forego what I know I
should be doing and I'm going todo what the group is doing.
So I think it's important tounderstand that.
You know our behaviors, nomatter.
You know, if you look at thison a spectrum, every single
human behavior that exists,everything from extreme
isolation to extreme violenceand everything in between.
(36:26):
Right At its core, it sharesthe same biological need safety,
right and really quick.
The safety piece when it comesto what's most familiar.
The brain is also hardwired toidentify patterns and
predictability is key because ifI can predict it, I can survive
(36:48):
it right when the unpredictableis uncertain.
If it's uncertain, I cannotguarantee I'll survive it right.
So if you think about this in atribal sense, you know if you
and I left the cave many, manymoons ago we went hunting and we
venture off into the wildernessmuch further than we've ever
been before.
Perhaps we heard that the herdis down that way now and we're
(37:09):
going to go check it out.
But we venture much furtherthan we've ever been and, by all
definition, we're lost.
And if you and I are lost, youknow our chances of physical
survival has just gone downsignificantly.
Even worse if we go out byourselves, right so, we're out
there alone and lost, right soif you?
So, if we don't know thethreats, we don't know if
(37:30):
there's other tribes, we don'tknow shelter, we don't know any
of these things Right so,biologically speaking, when you
start to break free from yourfamily of origin my family's
always been employees, but Iwant to start my own business,
Right?
My family's out of shape,overweight, you know.
I want to get healthy.
Right, Abuse, you know myfamily always just screams at
each other.
I want to be in a healthyrelationship.
Whatever the opposite is thatyou're most familiar with, your
(37:53):
nervous system is going toidentify as uncertain.
If it's uncertain, it'sunpredictable.
If it's unpredictable, I cannotguarantee you'll survive it.
Right, Cause it's much saferfor us to understand the threat
that's present than to beblindsided by one we've never
seen.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, not only that, I think one of the things that
I'll add to this conversation,and I know you'll agree with
this.
But not only are we contendingwith this sort of outside thing,
but the conditioning makes it.
We have an internal family aswell, defined as emotions, and
onto that, sensations, stories,memories all of this stuff as
(38:38):
well is also chattering, perhapsmore so.
So even if you do break freefrom your environmental family,
you're not necessarily breakingfree from the internal
sensations, emotions, memories.
Free from the internalsensations, emotions, memories,
stories that are there.
And so then it's like to me,the next piece is that is all
(39:00):
subconscious.
When we hear conditioning, Ithink of programming, I think of
subconscious.
So now I go, and maybe we canbegin wrapping this up with this
, because I want to see whereyou are with this.
I have my thoughts, I want tosee what your thoughts are.
How do we then get in and startunwinding that conditioning?
You frame this up so well whereit's like okay, part of the
(39:20):
process is we have got to getourselves to feel safe, perhaps
choose another type of tribethat will accept us and grab us
and make us feel safe.
But, more importantly, we haveto cultivate a tribe within
chatter, within thoughts, withinbeliefs, within that are not a
logical place.
They come from a verysubconscious place that we need
(39:42):
to begin to unwind and I'mwondering what are your tools,
if any, for that?
I certainly have some, but Iwant to see what yours are.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
You know we could spend weeks talking about this,
but what I would love to do so.
So there's four questions Iliterally have sitting right in
front of me here that I'mworking on that.
I genuinely believe this and Iwant to ask you to punch holes
in it from your perspective aswell, or add to it.
But I believe there's fourquestions that can absolutely
change your life, and I don'tsay that as like hyper.
You know clickable headlines,right like.
(40:15):
I genuinely mean this and thesequestions are rooted to.
You know the, the chemicals inthe brain that are responsible
for how we're, we're motivatedand experiencing lives, right?
Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin,endorphins.
So obviously we haven't gotteninto those.
For anyone, that's like whatthe fuck is that?
Speaker 1 (40:31):
And they're really confused now they will find you
and figure it out.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, yeah, just know that they matter, right, and,
more importantly, just know thatmost of all of us are living in
conflict in a modern world,right, we're, we evolve to live
in nature.
We're living in these modernsocieties that are in complete
contradiction and our system ishijackedacked, first and
foremost.
So how do we regain control?
(40:58):
How do we start making positivechanges?
How do you start developingthat different sense of identity
and all the kind of things fromwithin, right?
So these four questions, Ibelieve, will set the tone if
you're willing to lean into them, right?
So the first question I havehere comes down to diet, into to
them, right?
So the first question I havehere is comes down to diet,
(41:18):
right, our mood serotonin 90 ofit or so is produced in your gut
.
You know.
So what you, you are, what youeat.
All right, they say that for areason.
So if you're eating like shit,you're gonna be shit, you're
gonna feel like and I say be notas a judgment, as a way you
feel about yourself, right?
So the the question to askyourself and this is confronting
for all of us, especially me,who still eats like a 12 year
old way too often, but if youlook at the food you're eating.
(41:38):
Ask yourself could the foodthat I'm eating have existed on
Earth before humans got here?
If the answer is no, there's agood chance that it's not full
of the things the body actuallyneeds.
So ask yourself could the foodthat I'm eating exist on earth
before humans got here?
Frosted flakes aren't going tomake the cut.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, definitely not, unfortunately for me.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Unfortunately, right, look, I'm angry about it too.
Pizza Fuck, not the pizza thatI've been eating, at least.
So that's the first thing.
If all you do is change that,you are going to significantly
change the way that you feelabout yourself, your energy
levels, your mood, yourconfidence.
So much of that's going toevolve, right.
So that's question number one.
(42:20):
The second question is directlyrelated to dopamine, which we
could spend hours on, but thething that and this really gets
into the self-sabotage right,because that's really a dopamine
conversation.
So ask yourself right, is thebehavior that you're doing?
Right?
Is the pleasure immediate ordelayed?
All right, when I take a bumpof cocaine, that shit is
(42:44):
immediate.
Right, when I go work out, thatis delayed.
But here's the thing.
So when you look at thisthrough the lens of and I'll put
it more cleanly, this is how Ioften ask people to look at
their behaviors If you beginmaking decisions based on how
you feel after versus how youfelt before, you can completely
change your life.
Right Before, I didn't want togo to the gym.
How do I feel after I've gone Ahundred percent Out?
(43:08):
I'm excited, I'm motivated, I'mconfident.
Right?
You know, pornography is a bigone in our lives and in my life.
So I plant that seed to saythis like how do I feel before
versus how do I feel after.
Before I'm stressed, I'manxious, I have all these
problems, right, I engage withthe pornography after, right,
yeah, I get a temporary relief,but then I'm immediately hit
with shame and guilt and, likeyou, know all the things.
(43:30):
So if I start making decisionsthis is what I've done in my
life based on how I feel after,and I become more attached to
that.
By the way, it's how I got offcocaine when I was in the throes
of temptation, all I couldthink about is the high.
But when I ran that full cycleto the crash, all of a sudden I
was like, absolutely not, I wantnothing to do with it.
So how do you feel after?
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yep, a hundred percent Perfect.
And then the third one reallyjust stems into the oxytocin,
right.
So connection, love, bonding,everything.
And it's what can I do to makesomeone else happy today?
Love that one.
You just open a door, right.
You don't have to pay offsomeone's college tuition.
Or you don't have to change theworld in a day, right.
(44:14):
You could just simply, you know, if you see a shoes they're
wearing and they catch your eye,give them a compliment right.
To a complete stranger, itdoesn't matter what it is, the
littlest things matter.
We all say it.
So what can I do to makesomeone else's day better?
If you just do a little more ofthat, you're going to feel
better.
And the fourth one really isn'ta question, it's more of a
statement and it kind of wrapsup everything we've been talking
(44:36):
about.
And it's if you feel stuck, ifyou feel afraid, if you feel
lost.
Understand that the hard thingand the right thing are often
the same thing.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
If we just stop avoiding.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Everything changes.
It has to right Cause andeffect.
So again, just a quick recapCould the food on your plate
have existed before humans gothere?
If it's yes, you're moving in agood direction.
How quickly does the behaviorcreate pleasure or feelings of
pride?
If I start making decisionsbased on how you feel after
(45:10):
right and the goal is to feelproud of yourself and what can I
do to make someone else's dayhappy or day better, however you
wish to look at it, and thenthe hard thing and the right
thing are often the same thing.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Yeah, I think that's so well said.
It doesn't surprise me.
You and I are always thinkingalong the same lines.
This is very similar to some ofthe work I do with my purpose
statements with individuals.
I think it's huge and I thinkpart of what it does is it's
really setting people up to belooking at that next level,
human, authentic self, not thebase level.
(45:44):
You know, past self and not thecurrent self.
You don't want to be authenticto the current you because you
want to change.
So that would be, you know, inopposition to that.
And the final thing I would sayto wrap us up is there's got to
be a way to get us out of theconscious programming of the
current situation, and thesefour things, certainly with
(46:08):
practice, do that, and that'show I would be looking at that.
I think it's absolutely genius.
So, my brother, I reallyappreciate the time today.
I really love this conversation.
Let's see if we can make itsooner next time before we talk
again instead of two years later.
But, matthew, you better hang onthe line.
But for all of you who want tocheck out Matthew, what's your
(46:31):
handles on Instagram and wherecan they get you?
Speaker 2 (46:34):
It's just literally at Matthew Pates.
I start there, I keep it simple.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Yeah, and Pates is P-A-E-T-Z.
Everyone so catch him onInstagram.
Really, pay close attention tohim.
He's incredibly generous withhis work.
Good friend of mine, brother,stay on the line just real quick
.
I want to make sure we upload.
But for all of you, thanks forhanging out on the show and we
will see.
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